If you love Hollywood romantic comedy formula movies, like 'Pretty Woman' and expect everything to be neatly spelled out and wrapped in a pretty bow stick to watching your Julia Roberts DVD, this one is not for you.
Parker Posey is a delight in the lead role of an advertising executive living in Cleveland with her dishwater dull High School Biology teacher husband played by Paul Rudd.
After ten years in the soulless suburbs and the only Joneses on the block without a pool, life on the surface looks good for the couple. A pretty house with an ultra modern kitchen, her career is on track and she has just been made V.P. at her ad agency, and he is 'getting it' all the time. But what's wrong? That's where our story begins and where it goes is anybodies guess.
The big O in the title refers to one thing, the one Parker's character cannot achieve, and the film explores her journey to see if she can resolve it.
Parker shines, again, and proves to be perfect in the lead. Rudd is solid as the dumpy husband. The supporting cast is a delight too and includes Danny Devito, who appears to play a Louish character ala 'Taxi,' at first, and Liza Minelli, (yes, it really is her!) and Heather Graham in an unbilled supporting role and who has never having looked better on screen.
It is one part feminist statement about owning ones body, one part slap stick comedy, the pager sequence could have been part of a 'Three's Company' plot (if it had aired on cable and been R rated) and one part breezy romantic comedy with an unlikely romantic counter part for Posey this film is a delight and total original. .
The best thing about the film is that defies convention and is thoroughly enjoyable in the process. There is no great moral dilemmas, which if you are used to Hollywood formula appear telegraphed and then never materializes, or obnoxious 'I am Woman' statements. The kind of statements that a lot of message movies in which the film maker is going to 'educate the ignorant masses' often falls victim to.
Parker Posey is a delight in the lead role of an advertising executive living in Cleveland with her dishwater dull High School Biology teacher husband played by Paul Rudd.
After ten years in the soulless suburbs and the only Joneses on the block without a pool, life on the surface looks good for the couple. A pretty house with an ultra modern kitchen, her career is on track and she has just been made V.P. at her ad agency, and he is 'getting it' all the time. But what's wrong? That's where our story begins and where it goes is anybodies guess.
The big O in the title refers to one thing, the one Parker's character cannot achieve, and the film explores her journey to see if she can resolve it.
Parker shines, again, and proves to be perfect in the lead. Rudd is solid as the dumpy husband. The supporting cast is a delight too and includes Danny Devito, who appears to play a Louish character ala 'Taxi,' at first, and Liza Minelli, (yes, it really is her!) and Heather Graham in an unbilled supporting role and who has never having looked better on screen.
It is one part feminist statement about owning ones body, one part slap stick comedy, the pager sequence could have been part of a 'Three's Company' plot (if it had aired on cable and been R rated) and one part breezy romantic comedy with an unlikely romantic counter part for Posey this film is a delight and total original. .
The best thing about the film is that defies convention and is thoroughly enjoyable in the process. There is no great moral dilemmas, which if you are used to Hollywood formula appear telegraphed and then never materializes, or obnoxious 'I am Woman' statements. The kind of statements that a lot of message movies in which the film maker is going to 'educate the ignorant masses' often falls victim to.